Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the political economy of islamic discourse 91to enhance their economic and social bases and gradually to compete with theestablished centers of Wnance and industry.The 1990s have been marked by the continued migration of the Anatolianbourgeoisie toward the economic and political centers of power. Since the 1980economic restructuring, Islamic movements have not sought to control thestate directly but rather have focused on “community-related goals withoutsharing their state-oriented ideologies.” 37 On moving to new neighborhoods,persons need a new value system to preserve their families and to create a newmoral language to regulate their relations with their environment. The villagebasedvalues were not suYcient to regulate the complex relations that exist inbig metropolitan cities. The rhythms of Islamic movements in Turkey thusare not geared toward the consolidation of individual autonomy but rathertoward the maintenance of communal ties and solidarity. 38 Since Islam constituteda shared code of conduct for Turkish society, Islam has become theideology of these newcomers, who have sought a place and voice in the politicaldomain and economic sphere against a center that identiWed itself withlaicism. In this process, the SuW orders have functioned as informal networksfor raising capital and promoting the business interests of fellow members.In other words, the economic growth of the mid-1980s transformed Islamicorganizational networks into mechanisms for achieving upward mobility. Forinstance, according to the pro-Kemalist daily Cumhuriyet, the West WorkingGroup of the Military determined that there are more than 4,000 pro-Islamiccorporations in Turkey; about 203 out of 385 major corporations are ownedby interests aligned with Fethullah Gülen. 39In addition to the Islamic identity nurtured in SuW neighborhood networks,another form of identity, generated in hometown solidarity (hem7eri) associations,also emerged. Hem7eri networks are the most natural and pervasive magnetsof loyalty for those who are new arrivals in the lower class neighborhoodsringing large cities. The hometown identity remains a central sentimental bondamong a group of people who share a common geographical origin, mainly rural,and a common status, for the most part, of beginning life anew on the lowerrungs of the urban capitalist economy. Hometown networks of solidarity involvemutual expectations and obligations on the part of their members. In otherwords, the phenomenon of hometown aYnity is consolidated, stressed, andmatured as an identity instead of fading away in the big-city environment. 40 Theneighborhoods in the 1980s became distinct units of shared provincial, religious,and ethnic loyalties.The mobilization of Islamic identity in these new urban centers assumed aguise that reXects the more loosely structured and interpretive aspect of what Iearlier deWned as a society-centric Islamic movement, as opposed to what I calledthe doctrinal and rigidly deWned state-centric Islamic movement. Neighborhoodassociations and SuW orders contribute to the development of a Xexible andadaptive Islamic identity and a discourse that is able to respond to the complexstresses and changes of modern urban life. At this horizontal level, the expansionof education and technological innovation lead to an awareness of the powerof agency and individualism.